CALL TO NATIONALISE SARB SCARES INVESTORS ABRAHAMS OUTCOME REFLECTS IMPORTANCE OF RULE OF LAW IN DEMOCRACY

OUR resident economics wizard, Julius ‘Take the land’ Malema, already having bamboozled the weak ANC into expropriation without compensation, now wants to create even more chaos by proposing nationalising the Reserve Bank.

This is, once again, nothing more than an election tactic that is, in fact, quite insane, when one thinks of how other state-owned entities (SOES) are run – usually into the ground. We really don’t need “economic sovereignty” but we definitely need private and foreign shareholders.

With such a move, investor confidence will suffer a mighty blow. Investment cannot come from the state alone. Does the EFF know that the Reserve Bank is not a private entity but a “statutory creation of Parliament” that determines the main policy goals that have a bearing on how the Sarb carries out its mandate.

More than half the board’s directors are appointed by the president. Private shareholders have no direct control over monetary policy or the bank’s operations. The “buying out” of existing shareholders will result in paying out large sums of money to effect the changes.

It can also damage the country’s very THE Concourt’s blistering and scathing judgment on the Shaun Abrahams

case is a timely and stinging rebuke to the ANC government.

It is a stern and timely reminder that the state must desist from transgressions on sacred constitutional laws pertaining to governance under the rule of law.

The judgment reflects the spirit of the rule of law and its paramount importance to the promotion and consolidation of our democracy.

In Human Rights Watch’s 2012 World Report, it was stated that “South Africa continues to grapple with corruption, growing social and economic inequalities and the weakening of state institutions by partisan appointments and one-party dominance”.

It goes on to state that, “After a smooth

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fragile economic situation. Nationalising the Sarb just means more hands in the cookie jar, and has nothing to do with economic growth or a “better life for all”.

JR Whitlock

start in the early post-apartheid period, South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, is increasingly afflicted by contradictions between the idealistic principles and the baser behaviours of many of its office-holders.

“These behaviours currently include threats to institute tighter controls over the judiciary and the ANC’S civil society critics, especially the independent media.

“A discernible trend towards intolerance of judicial brakes on executive power, and also towards a general aversion to any criticism on executive policies and actions, raises troubling questions about the future of democratic governance in South Africa.”

The 2011 Mo Ibrahim index of African Governance shows that although South Africa ranks fifth overall among African governments, the scores have consistently declined over the past five years, with a significant reduction in scores for the rule of

law.

When we emerged from global isolation in 1994, and our balanced Constitution came into force, “rule of law” took shape and it became the avowed object of the state to defend this fundamental law of governance irrespective of who the violator was.

It has been repeatedly stated over the past 400 years that “Wherever law ends, tyranny begins”.

Farouk Araie